Mean Sisters: A sassy, hilariously funny murder mystery. Lindsay Emory
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the room.
A tentative hand went up. ‘Who is a guy we should never date?’ Giggles erupted around the circle.
Cheyenne was patient with the little joke. ‘No. Who is the Delta Beta Olympic gold medalist,’ she answered.
‘Bonus points,’ I chimed in. ‘Who knows Frisky’s Olympic event?’
No one seemed to know.
‘C’mon guys, it was decathlon,’ I said.
Pens were picked up and notes were scribbled. Pledges didn’t just learn this stuff for fun. They were tested on it. If they didn’t get a perfect score, they weren’t initiated. It wasn’t hazing. It was education.
‘What kind of a name is Frisky?’ A dark-haired pledge asked.
‘It was a nickname, one she picked up as a pledge. It has nothing to do with boys. Or cats,’ I hastily added.
The pledges looked impressed at the breadth of my knowledge of Delta Beta trivia.
Cheyenne moved on. ‘Dorothy.’
‘Oh! Oh!’ A petite Asian girl on the floor said, waving her hand in the air. ‘The original name for Busy Bee, our mascot.’
Cheyenne scrunched up her nose. ‘I’m sorry, your answer has to be in the form of a question.’
‘Fun fact!’ I interrupted again. ‘Does anyone know why a Bee was picked to be the Deb mascot?’
Hands shot up around the circle. ‘Because its colours are black and gold?’
‘Because they’re really small and petite?’
‘Because they sting like a bitch?’
‘Sort of,’ I said. ‘Because bees work hard, play hard and always listen to the queen.’
Cheyenne and I exchanged a knowing smile. I could tell we both liked being the queen.
‘Have you all gotten your Busy Bees yet from your big sisters?’ I asked the pledges.
The pledges all smiled and nodded, pleased that they had been involved with such an important Deb tradition. Delta Beta big sisters always gave their little sisters their first plush Busy Bee. It was a cherished item that the little kept with them for the rest of their lives. And since it wasn’t a teddy bear or a bunny, there was nothing juvenile about it in the least.
Of course, I still had my Busy Bee from Amanda, back in my room at my parents’ house in Florida. Because I travelled full time for Delta Beta, it never made sense for me to get an apartment in Atlanta when I was only there six weeks of the year, so most of my personal belongings had sat in boxes for the past six years.
‘Did you give a Busy Bee to your little sister?’ The Asian girl on the floor asked me. She couldn’t know that she had touched on a sensitive subject.
‘I never had a little sister.’ It was the brutal truth. And six plus years hadn’t made the pain of that truth go away.
The pledges’ eyes widened in shock. I bet they’d never heard something so disturbing. ‘I really don’t like to talk about it,’ I said. ‘But know from my example, that you can be a proud, strong Delta Beta even if your little sister dreams don’t work out like they should.’
As an initiated member, Cheyenne understood better than the pledges what my admission meant. Compassion and support were in her eyes before she picked up her tablet and started again on the training process.
I pulled a chair to the back of the room and listened as facts and figures that I knew so well were repeated and memorised by a new generation. This is what it was all about: sharing history and learning traditions. This was the fabric of our lives.
The pledges finished Deb Jeopardy and Cheyenne told everyone to pull out their Pledge Manuals and open to page fifty-five.
I knew what that was. The beginning of the standards and morals sections. Standards and morals were so vital to every sorority. Pledges were first gently corrected on bid day if they drank beer from a bottle or smoked in their letters. But it wasn’t about the silly little rules. All the silly little rules contributed to something larger, something more important, reminding the pledges that their conduct reflected on the sorority as a whole, on their friends and sisters. Personally, I thought it was a lesson that more young women needed to learn these days. And not to smoke and walk at the same time. That was just common sense.
After they had all gotten to the correct page, Cheyenne resumed her presentation. ‘Now, last week we discussed some of the academic rules, the required GPA, the mandatory study hours and the expectation that all Debs will turn over their class notes at the end of a semester for other sisters to use in subsequent semesters. This week, I’d like to go over your morals. Can anyone tell me why good morals are important to Delta Beta?’
The petite Asian girl raised her hand. ‘Because it’s in our creed?’
‘Sort of, but I think it’s in our creed because it’s important to the sorority, not vice versa. Anyone else?’
‘Because we’re not Tri Mu?’ That came from the back of the room and resulted in almost everyone snickering.
‘That’s sort of true, too,’ Cheyenne said with a wink. ‘But good morals define your character. Anyone can follow a rule just because it’s a rule. That doesn’t mean they’re moral people. They just don’t want to suffer the consequences when they break a rule. Morals are how you live your life when there are no rules. Morals are how you live when nobody’s watching.’
‘I thought that was dance,’ a tall girl with thick auburn hair half-joked.
‘Yeah,’ another pledge nodded. ‘You’re supposed to dance like no one is watching.’
‘That’s so lame,’ a pretty cheerleader type scoffed. ‘The whole point of dancing is to make sure people are watching you.’ Some of the other pledges nodded in agreement.
‘It’s the same principle with morals,’ I said to the room. ‘Yes, you can dance for performance’s sake, for your dance class, or for your parents who paid for the lessons. But if you dance while no one is watching, you’re wilder, crazier. You reveal your true self then, just when it’s you and the music. Morals are the things you do when no one is watching. You’re sharing class notes; you’re forming a study group; you’re showing up for work on time. These are the things that shape your character.’
This is what Ty Hatfield didn’t understand about the Delta Beta code. It was why I preserved the sanctity of our rituals. It was why I would always put my sisters first. It was why I knew a Deb could never kill someone on purpose. It would go against everything we stood for.
Wednesday morning, I got up with a renewed sense of purpose. After dressing and eating a quick breakfast, I headed to the Chapter Advisor’s office and locked the door of the office behind me. It was a rather futile, maybe even immature, action, but somehow I felt the need to lock myself in the Advisor’s office. Hatfield’s visit the night before had given me a lot to think about, on top of the pile of to-do’s I already had.
The suggestion that Liza McCarthy had been murdered was bad enough. The suggestion that a sorority sister was the murderer was untenable. Ty Hatfield did not understand how sororities worked. Sorority women were a lot of things, but we weren’t murderers.
When I sat back down to get to work, Ty Hatfield wouldn’t leave my head. As cute as he was, he did seem to be a diligent cop and rather distrustful of women. It was a shame. Women had so much to offer men.
I focused on organising the office. The first round was clearing all sociology papers from the room. This was fairly easy and in thirty minutes I had a nice pile of books, tests and papers that one